Mentoring someone in the community is one of the most profound experiences imaginable. You will get to influence and guide someone who might have several decades worth of experience but has never been involved in the community, someone that is just getting started on their journey, or might be anywhere in between.
You are an established technical expert, a renowned speaker, a firmament in the communty - certainly you can teach your mentee everything they need to know? While you may very well be able to, but that might not be what your mentee needs. In fact - it was never about you.
On the other side of that coin, being mentored by someone in the community can be both exciting, scary, frustrating and challenging - but if everything works out, it can also enable you to take the next step in your career. On the surface, handling mentoring as a veteran in the industry may bring different challenges than as someone who is just getting started, but fundamentally it all comes down to the same thing: trust.
In this session, a mentor and a mentee share their views on what it means to be a mentor and a mentee, talk about the challenges they both face in their respective roles and in their respective lives, and explain the importance of listening.